How to Bulk Modify Active Directory User Attributes

by Robert Allen

In this article, you will learn how to bulk modify Active Directory user attributes using PowerShell and the AD Pro Toolkit. Both options will use a CSV file to bulk update AD User accounts.

In this article

Bulk Modify AD User Attributes with PowerShell

In this example, I’ll use the set-aduser cmdlet to update AD User attributes.

Step 1. Create CSV File

You need a CSV file with a list of users and the attributes you want to update. For example, I’m going to bulk update the description, job title, department, company and office attribute for multiple users. I’m using the users samaccountname in column A to identify the accounts to update.

CSV Example.

csv file

Step 2. Create and Run Script

The script below puts everything from the CSV into a hashtable. If you are updating different attributes just modify the hashtable section with your attributes. 

$Users = Import-Csv -Path C:\it\BUlkModifyUsers.csv

ForEach ($User in $Users) { 
     
    #Let's create a hashtable of attributes to update our user with
    $Attributes = @{
          Description =   $User.Description
          Title =              $User.title
          Department =  $User.Department
          Company =      $User.Company
          Office =            $User.Office
    }

    Set-AdUser -Identity $user.samAccountName @Attributes

    
    Write-host $User.samAccountName "has been updated" -ForegroundColor Cyan
}

Open PowerShell and run the script. I saved both my csv file and script into c:\it folder on my computer.

powershell update attributes script

Thats it, pretty easy right? You can then use PowerShell to list all of the attributes for the user to verify they updated. 

 Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | select name, description, title, department, company, office | format-table
powershell verify attributes

Easily Bulk Modify AD User Attributes with AD Pro Toolkit

The AD Pro Toolkit is a collection of Active Directory Tools to simplify and streamline Active Directory management. The included Bulk Modify Users tool makes it easy to update and remove user attributes.

Step 1. Download CSV Template

Click on Bulk Modify Users and then download the template.

modify user tool

Fill out the template with the user accounts and attributes you want to update. In this example, I will modify several attributes at once including adding users to groups and setting a manager.

  • Tip #1 = You can remove columns from the template that you don’t need.
  • Tip #2 = You can use the included user export tool to export accounts and attributes you want to update to a CSV. This makes it easier to create a template.

CSV Example.

csv example 2

Step 2. Run Bulk Update Users Tool

Select your CSV file and click run.

run bulk update users tool

The toolkit will output how many accounts were updated and show and errors. As you can see the toolkit makes it very easy to bulk update AD attributes and requires no PowerShell scripting. Download AD Pro Toolkit and try it for free.

Bulk Remove User Attributes

In the previous example, I showed you how to mass update user attributes but what if you want to bulk remove user attributes?

No problem.

The process is almost the same, just add the LDAP attribute to the CSV and for the value put remove.

I’ll remove the values for the employeeid and employeenumber.

clear user attributes

Now just run the tool, select the CSV and click run.

I’ll verify the changes in ADUC.

verify user attribute removed

Looks good the values have been removed.

To verify with PowerShell use this command.

Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | select employeeid, employeenumber
powershell verify all attributes removed

Bonus! You can remove and update values at the same time.

There comes a time when every administrator faces the need to make bulk changes to Active Directory user accounts. I have faced this challenge several times and have struggled with it in the past. With the AD User Bulk Update Tool this is no longer a problem for me or my team to deal with. This tool makes it very easy and saves a great amount of time when dealing with modifying user accounts.

This tool is included in the AD Pro Toolkit. You can download a free trial here. 

Related Articles

Recommended Tools

  • AD Cleanup Tool - Find stale and inactive user and computer accounts in Active Directory. Export, disable, move or delete the stale accounts to increase security.
  • AD User Creation Tool - Bulk import or update Active Directory user accounts. Add users to groups, import into OUs, set multiple attributes and more.
  • NTFS Permissions Tool - Scan and audit NTFS folder permissions. See which users and groups have access to what.
  • AD Reporting Tool - Over 200 reports on users, computers, groups, OUs and more. Customize reports or create your own reports with the report builder.

29 thoughts on “How to Bulk Modify Active Directory User Attributes”

  1. Hi, I am working on a powershell to add new employees to the AD server but I am facing error when trying to addthe manager for new users and change the manager for existing users.

    Please help me with script as I am unable populate manager fields

    Reply

  2. Can I use the user Bulk updater to Change all SAMAccountname to lowercase? I tried putting it in the csv as all lowercase to see if that would work, but it doesn’t seem as though it does anything.

    Reply

  3. I am trying to update users phone numbers in AD and every line is giving an error “The server is unwilling to process the request”, what do I need to do to resolve this?

    Thanks
    Joe

    Reply

    • The Bulk update tool update source is a CSV. What you can do is use the export tool to export all the users from the OU then use it with the bulk updater.

      Reply

  5. Does it work only on SAMaccountname as the Reference key/Filter , I have a requirement to update some fields but the only reference they can give me is the email address of the users not the SAMAccountname.

    the secondary issue is that it’s likely the data they given me may have spelling errors etc in the email addresses, i can’t see any examples of the system handling errors in the input file or an output file that can be reviewed?
    how does the system handle errors and is there a log file that can be reviewed.

    Note:- the issue here is the request for change is coming from HR and they don’t want to work with the SAMaccountname.

    Reply

    • The GUI tool is limited to the SAMAccountname. With PowerShell you can use distinguished name, GUID, security identifier (SID), or Security Account Manager (SAM).

      Do you have the email address populated in AD? If HR is just giving you the email addresses you should be able pull the SAMAccountname by looking up the accounts based on email.

      Reply

  6. What are the least amount of privileges an AD account would need to be able to use the bulk modify tool to modify, let’s say, all the first/last names of all AD users in a domain?

    Reply

    • You need modify rights to accounts. You can use the delegation wizard to delegate these rights out if you don’t want to give domain administrator rights.

      Reply

  7. Hi Robert,
    Thanks for the great scripts, can you help if I have to update the manager attribute from another trusted forest what is the quick and scripted way to achieve this? I have added users in the DOmain Local group from the trusted forest it is not part of the same tree so only way to acheive is to import users in DL group and extract the foreign security principal.
    Thanks any assistance will be great help.

    Reply

  8. after updating a field which was temporar, I tried to clear it. But it does not clear the filed, it adds the word “remove” in the field. I was trying to clear the city field.

    Reply

  9. Hi Robert

    Is there any steps on how to change user account email in on premises active directory which syn to 0365

    I have AD on prem and also has Azure AD + 0365 – normally the changes is done on local active directory

    I did few test and was not able to log in to email account after changing the email from local AD

    Any suggestion will be much appreciate

    Sqito

    Reply

  11. This tool looks great and almost just what I need except there are 2 parts and you just have the user part.
    There are user accounts and OU pc name accounts.

    I would buy your tool if there was a way to bulk change info on both. So in the
    computer ou ability to change -managed by

    Reply

  12. Hi Robert,

    I’m attempting a simple import as a test, but every attribute I try to update I get:

    [06:08:14] INFO: Unable to set property: postalCode

    Any ideas?

    Thanks

    Reply

  14. Thanks great tools. All work fine except for two feature I’d have liked with Bulk Update

    Is there anyway to update the samaccountname? A number of ours were incorrectly created with uppercase names and we’d like them to conform to our organisation policy of all lower case – this feeds on to email addresses and other things. I know that the value doesn’t affect logging in and even bulk user update gets the right account if I use the new lower case only value but it doesn’t attempt to update it (no reason why it should). I tried adding it as a second column hoping it would recognise that as meaning I wanted a new value but it didn’t work of course – wishful thinking!

    Reply

      • Thanks – I’ve found another little issue, part of which is about my setup which you might have an idea on but part of which needs a small correction in ythe template you provide for bulk update 🙂

        When updating givenName and userPrincipalName on one DC, everything works fine. But on another (completely different network neither will update:
        [18:55:31] INFO: Processing: z.hunt
        [18:55:31] INFO: Looping through properties for z.hunt
        [18:55:31] INFO: givenName property detected
        [18:55:32] INFO: Actioning all property updates
        [18:55:32] INFO: Unable to set property: givenName
        [18:55:32] INFO: Looping through properties for z.hunt
        [18:55:32] INFO: userPrincipalName property detected
        [18:55:32] INFO: Actioning all property updates
        [18:55:33] INFO: Unable to set property: userPrincipalName
        [18:55:33] INFO: Done Processing z.hunt

        The template file you give suggests using givename for the attribute but it should be givenName.

        givenName works on one of my servers but not on the other – same problem with userPrincipalName

        Any thoughts?

        Reply

  15. by me:
    The term ‘set-adattribute’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or opera
    ble program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
    At line:1 char:1
    + set-adattribute

    Reply

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